Apple Unveils New Devices at Apple Park

On September 12th, Apple hosted its very first event in the Steve Jobs theater at Apple Park, the new corporate headquarters of Apple in Cupertino, California. The innovative company introduced a plethora of new devices for consumers to purchase; quite literally an embarrassment of riches.

First announced was an update to the Apple TV, a digital media player that connects to your high definition television and can be used to watch iTunes movies and television shows, listen to music from iTunes or Apple Music, and use Siri on the television. The device can also access an app store that has a variety of third party apps ranging from entertainment, social media, games, workouts, and even shopping apps like Amazon and Zillow. This year, the Apple TV has been updated to support 4K Ultra HD and HDR (High Dynamic Range) content for breathtakingly crisp picture quality with more vibrant and real to life color reproduction. The Apple TV 4K will be available on Friday, September 22nd starting at the price of $179 for 32GB of storage space.

Next up was the new Apple Watch Series 3, a slightly improved Apple Watch with a few major features added. The Apple Watch Series 3 offers cellular connectivity, which means you can now feel free to leave your iPhone at home and wear your Apple Watch anywhere without having to worry about missing calls, texts, or any other notifications. It also has a faster processor, a new Apple Designed W2 chip for better WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity, and a new altimeter for more ways to track physical activity. The true innovation of this product is that Apple’s design team was able to fit a cellular radio, antenna, and sim card in a device that retains every previous Apple Watch feature and is the exact same size as the original Apple Watch. The Apple Watch Series 3 will also be available on September 22nd and starts at $399 for the model with cellular connectivity and $329 for the version without it.

After an hour of anticipation, Apple’s CEO Tim Cook finally took the stage and announced the products everyone was eager to see. First, he introduced the iPhone 8 and 8+. On the outside, not much has changed, but on the inside, these devices have severely improved on many core areas of the iPhone. The iPhone 8 and 8+ come with the Apple A11 Bionic chip. It has two high performance cores that are 25% faster and four highly efficient cores that are 70% faster than the ones found in the iPhone 7. All of these cores work together to make the iPhone 8 just as powerful as Apple’s latest Macbook Pro laptops. In addition to an extremely powerful mobile processor, these new iPhones offer speakers that are 25% louder and deliver deeper bass, a True Tone display that can adapt to ambient light, and a larger 12MP camera sensor on the back for even better picture quality. On the iPhone 8+, the back camera module uses a new image signal processor to capture portrait-like photos with studio lighting effects that can darken the background, spotlight the person in the foreground, or even add shadows with highlights and lowlights. The iPhone 8 also comes with wireless charging capabilities thanks to a new glass backed design in silver, gold, or space gray color options. Both the iPhone 8 and 8+ will be available to consumers on September 22, with pricing starting at $699 for the iPhone 8 and $799 for the iPhone 8+. And many previous iPhone owners will be happy to know that both phones start with 64GB of storage space.

And then, when most audience members expected the product announcements to end, Tim Cook said, “But wait, there’s one more thing”, a famous line repeated at many Apple keynotes when an unexpected product is announced.

The last device announced was the iPhone X. The iPhone X, pronounced “iPhone 10” is the most advanced iPhone yet. It has an all glass design with virtually no bezels on the front of the phone. Although the iPhone X is about the same size as the iPhone 8, it manages to fit a 5.8 inch OLED (Organic LED) display on the front that is larger than the one found on the iPhone 8+. The OLED display also gives the iPhone X a more premium look, with HDR and Dolby Vision support, a one million to one contrast ratio, and 458 pixels per inch in the Super Retina HD display. In addition to retaining all of the features of the new iPhone 8 and 8+, the iPhone X offers a steel framed glass body, a neural engine inside its A11 Bionic chip, Portrait Mode and Portrait Lighting for the selfie camera, and an advanced True Depth camera system. Due to there being no bezels on the iPhone X, the all too familiar home button no longer exists on this phone. Taking the place of Touch ID as the iPhone’s biometric security measure is Face ID, a facial recognition system that is powered by the True Depth camera system. The True Depth camera includes an infrared camera, dot projector, flood illuminator, proximity sensor, and 7MP camera working in tandem to make a detailed map of your face and recognize it instantly. Face ID’s function isn’t obstructed by hats, glasses, or facial hair thanks to the neural engine inside the A11 Bionic chip that adapts to the various changes your face can go through over time. The True Depth camera can also analyze over fifty muscle movements in the face to mimic and replicate your expressions in 7 different emoji-like characters that you can send to anyone on Apple’s iMessage service. The iPhone X will be available on Friday, November 3rd starting at $999 for 64GB of storage and comes in the colors silver and space gray.

Every Apple device announcement is filled with exciting new products, and this one was no exception. The public (and Apple) should be eager for the holiday season when consumers spend over $42 Billion dollars on the worlds most talked about products. Which device are you most looking forward to purchasing?